Discussion

Magda's - A Venezuelan diner

This spot looks like a diner. The menu is half Venezuelan and half traditional diner food like burgers, omelets, and all-day breakfast egg plates.

Ordered the Venezuelan staple of pabellón con barandas. They did a very nice job on this. The beef was well seasoned without being salty, full of slow cooked flavours, and extremely tender. The beans were nicely seasoned and had some queso fresco to round out the flavours. The plantains were sweet, cooked to a perfect slight crisp on the outside and still creamy on the inside. The arepa was nicely formed on the outside, got some grill marks on it, and was glutinous on the inside.

Everything was enhanced by the three housemade sauces provided - their version of guasacaca (which was must looser than I have had before, yet still with a pleasant taste), a garlic sauce, and a housemade hotsauce. The hotsauce had some serious kick, and really enhanced everything.

In a city with limited Latin flavours, Magda's fills the void nicely. I've been back twice so far, and will continue to return - although likely will stick to the Venezuelan parts of the menu!

I agree with YVR and Sam on the arepas and super friendly service. The only thing I tried was an arepa-type sandwich. The arepas were huge compared to the ones I've had before but was told these were the authentic size. My filling was roasted pork (pernil) with avocado and queso fresco, and I had to douse the meat with the sauces mentioned above to give it some flavour. My sweet-tooth was happy with an horchata-type drink loaded with condensed milk--I forget the name of this though.

This is indeed where T-Hut was. It is much improved decorwise since then though still pretty minimalist. We hit them up for a family dinner a week ago Saturday.

We got rock-star parking out front as we were there on the early side but they do indeed have free municipal lots behind them.

Our DCs beat us there and had their eye on the pabellon criollo ($12) at a recco from another table, so we got that. We also tried the arepitas, the chicha ($4.95) drink that els liked so much, the special parilla ($16.50), and the bandera montanera ($13.75), and the arepa reina pepiada, a sandwich ($10.25).

The pabellon was a bit hit with the table, though I was not enamoured of the red peppers in it, or the slight sweetness. What knocked my socks off was the rice, which was lovely and buttery, cooked to a perfect al dente. The arepitas were stuffed with a sour cream and cheese mix that reminded me of soft goat cheese. Nice way to ingest arepas :-). The chicha is like a dish all to itself, very rice and sweet -- loved it but glad we all shared it as to drink one alone would fill me up too much. The special parilla comes with chicken, beef and chorizo tossed in the same green sauce that comes to the table. The meat is perched on top of a pile of chopped head lettuce with sad winter tomato slices and four or five slabs of fried cassava. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this dish but again glad we were sharing it. The bandera montanera had lovely steak prepared in just the way I remember from our many trips to Latin America long ago -- a bit of chew but still tender, and lots of flavour. The beans were excellent too. The sandwich was as described above, not bad but a bit bland.

Very nice service from what appears mostly to be family members. Prices perhaps a tad high for what you get (the sandwich in particular didn't seem like good value) but the portions are pretty generous and the ingredients of solid quality. I would come back and eat family style for sure. Total bill all in for four and a half people: $80.